MTT Build-Up, Round 2

Well, I was going to go through a brief point by point of my upcoming Maelstrom Team Tournament list, and I’m still going to do that, but with a brief caveat.  The list has now changed.  Feel free to eye-roll.

I’ll go through the list as it was and then talk about the changes as well as potential further alterations, although it is perilously close to the deadline so too many changes should be avoided.  Anyway, the brief rundown, in no particular order:

Immortals:  They are troops.  There shouldn’t even be a discussion about this.  I run them in small squads, as the list as a whole is fairly light on troops and the inability to daisy-chain a big squad over two objectives reduces the effectiveness of large Infantry squads when you still have the Force Org slots to accommodate another small unit.  Also, by keeping them small, they are less likely to attract enemy firepower, as I have found out in numerous practice games.  The rest of my army is big and scary, so these guys do tend to sneak under the radar and are resilient enough to shrug off the firepower that does come their way.  Plus, they are short (well, 24”) range guys who frequently have to hang around the backfield on an objective.  There’s not too much point in lavishing a tonne of points on them.  I kit them out with Tesla, because I like the random bonus hits every now and again.  The Gauss option has got significantly better for these guys since the dawn of sixth and is much more of an even contest for the Tesla.  However, with AP - weapons no longer doing any worse than normal on the vehicle damage table, the two stand even on killing anything less than AV13.

Necron Warriors:  Again, Troops.  I ran a ten man squad to hold an objective at the back and try for some cheeky vehicle harassment if anyone got close.  So far they’ve claimed points fine, but not really had much more of an effect on the game than that.  They’re rarely picked on by my opponents for the same reason that the Immortals are ignored.  The only different is in durability, which I make up for in numbers.

Triach Stalker:  A handy additional.  This unit is a holdover from the idea of AV13 being the key focus of the army.  AV13 walkers are real buggers to take down in assault for most units and can shrug off a lot of firepower, even anti-tank shots.  The twin-linking effect it imbues the rest of the army with definitely makes it a strong asset.  However, the relatively light weapon loadouts (it can only ever have one gun, and the maximum range is only 36”) and its poor performance as an assault heavy hitter (no dreadnought close combat weapon) renders it mainly as a strong support player with good durability to keep doing its job.

Deathmarks: Love these guys.  I’ve already gone into why I like using them in a previous Necrautopsy post, and now that sixth edition has hit, they are made even better by the new Sniper rules for precision shots as well as the softening of the Rapid Fire rules.  The marking of enemies or easy wounds is godsend versus certain enemies and their ability to deep strike anywhere on the field makes them ideal for surgical strikes against backfield elements or lynchpin units in the opponent’s list.

Night Scythes:  Unless you’re taking fortifications or whatever filth is available from your local Forgeworld cheese-merchant your best anti-flyer defence is going to be your own flyer.  Flyers are going to be rife in this edition (I think), and if I’m going to a competition, I should be prepared for that.  Night Scythes are good in this role as they are fairly durable (for flyers) and the troop transport capacity (my Night Scythes are usually filled with Deathmarks) allows it to pull double duty very effectively.  Also of note is the fact that they don’t have to drop into Hover mode to disgorge their cargo.  Which is handy, as Night Scythes don’t have a Hover mode. Unlike other transport flyers, they don’t subject their transported unit to horrible screaming death when the get shot down and the Twin linked Tesla Destructor is a very handy gun for your light vehicles and for arcing fun whenever the enemy are too clustered together.  In this list, I run two of these with 8 man Deathmarks inside for added reliability.  Although the Night Scythes themselves do not always strike true, the speed of them and their ability to plant Deathmarks where I want them due to the Invasion Beams make them a very nice combo and one I have used to great effect in many of my practice games.

Anyway, those were my Elites and Troops.  Tomorrow (or the day after, or the day after that, or… you get the idea) I’ll go through the rest of list and frantically justify my choices to you.

So long!